Compassionate Conservatism

Picture our country as a club. In this club we have a set of rules that are to be followed by all members within it i.e. the Constitution. Within our set of rules it has been said that there should be a separation between church and state. This doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be religion within the country. This just means that religion shouldn’t be controlled by the government or vice versa, they should remain separate. So, when the elected leader of the country begins funneling taxpayer dollars to clearly religious, or more specifically Christian social services in the name of a “faith-based” initiative what is to be said about the validity of our set of rules?
Heavily influenced by Christian nationalist Marvin Olasky, a strong supporter of scrapping the current welfare system and replacing it with private religious charity, former president Bush made his “compassionate conservatism” policy the center piece of his campaign. He knew that “Accepting Jesus had helped him quit drinking, and that experience seemed to be all the evidence Bush need that Olasky’s theories would work for the entire nation.”(Goldberg, p.113)
Bush and his supporters of the this initiative had to be very careful with their wording to the public using terms such as “faith-based” which appears pluralistic up front yet largely means “Christian-based”. While it is true that small grants where given to non-Christian organizations, they were heavily outweighed by those being given to Christian ones whose primary goal was conversion. What this can lead to is a discriminatory situation in which these social services being backed by the federal government only hire “like-minded” employees to support their mission. “Bush has insisted that religious groups that sponsor Head Start programs should have the right to restrict hiring to church members” (Boston, p. 9) This excerpt from Tom Boston’s article titled “Bush’s Faith Based Revival” is just one example of how this “faith-based” initiative could get out of hand. When social services that are being funded by the federal government are encouraged to discriminate, it throws up a major red flag.
While Bush is no longer the president of the United States, the issue is still quite troublesome. It seems to be a direct violation of the separation of church and state that the Constitution laid the framework for. Yet, with a conservative Christian behind the wheel a lot of these violations were encouraged and promoted. We can only hope that for the sake of the country that these violations do not grow stronger.

Boston, Tom. "Bush's Faith Based Revival." Church & State 57.3 (2004): 7-13. Web. 3 Nov 2009. .